So a little back story...


I had the head gasket done and all that jazz. At some point I had used the block seal gunk stuff and ended up forgetting about it as it sat there non operational.

I got it running, but it overheated when I ran just water for the first day. Took it back to the shop and they said the radiator is clogged, but I'm wondering if it's just because I told them about the block seal.

Anyways, they wanted to replace the radiator and I said eff that, I'm not spending 300 plus labor.

Is there a way to unclog the rad? I blasted a hose through the top for a bit with the drain on the bottom open. Now it doesn't over heat but it still runs wayyyy too hot.

So hot its melting my passenger side fans heatshrink on the wires.


So yeah, any ideas on how to unclog it more????

 

you could get another stock one for near 50 bucks check the evo forum.... it will be cheaper and less time consuming in the long run

 

I'm sure someone tried this at the shop, but its always good to check. Did you try burping the radiator and hosed. some times air gets stuck in there. It happened on my buddy's STI and his car ran hot.

 

no way! thatd help me greatly. but i think i may have discovered that the radiator is working fine.





yes i make sure all the air is out of the cooling system.

 

SOOOO

I did some things to determine if the radiator is actually eradicating any heat so I ran it with the AC to turn both fans on.

Turns out what the shop said wasnt true at all.
According to them "we ran the ac fans and there was only cool air coming through. therefore the radiator needs replacing."

Well thats bull. The rad is working fine. But for some reason the entire car is hella hot. Theres hothothot air coming from both fans.

Could it be my thermostat? I didnt get that replaced when I did the headgasket and everything. Forgot lol.


Any new thoughts? lol.

 

Oh yeah and i have auto. so i need the transmission cooling too. so ill probably need a seperate tranny cooler if i get an evo rad, correct?

 

I was just wondering if going from Mobil 1 Synthetic to some cheap $9/gallon oil would be noticable with heat. Its very hot here in Sacramento and since I blew a headgasket and fixed it, I had to flush all the coolant that got into the oil so I used cheap cheap oil.

But now the car runs hot. It doesn't overheat, just hella baking lol.

Any chance it could be the insanely cheap oil?

 

Is your HVAC working properly? Cold air with AC, and hot air with the heater. If so then its probably not your thermostat.

I doubt cheap oil would cause your car to overheat, unless you never change it.

Are you still running water? If so, switch to the proper coolant and try again. Also check your water pump

Hope that helps

 

Do a compression test if you can. Also, remove the radiator cap and run the engine. Look for bubbles in the water. That would be a sign of a leak via the head. It wont be bubbles like water gurgling and swirling. If you see them you will know.

 

I have an automatic as well. My engine bay gets really hot too, not to the point to melt the wires but after a 20 mile drive you can't hold your hand on the hood. As long as you don't overheat I think you should be fine. But if you melt the fan wires then I think you do overheat and your gauge might not be good either. I would invest into a temp gauge or if you have an Android phone just get Torque. It reads data from OBD2 like coolent temp, intake temp etc.
For the transmission cooler you can get one from auto store for like $50. It's easy to install, it took me like an hour but I took my time with it.
Now if you just want to cool down the engine bay ( like me) the best solution is to get the vented hood. I don't have the money to get the hood so I am trying other cheaper ways to cool it down. As soon as I will have some data I will report if my project is working or not.

 

my engine runs hot, i thought that was normal...needle sits about in the middle of the gauge.

 

I put header wrap on, that helps keep underhood temperatures down quite noticeably. Wrap tight, one layer only, overlap very little (just like the instructions say). It's been on for over a year, no issues with stock headers. Some people will hate on this stuff, I don't care, it works for me.



Also, I recall reading in evom that somebody shimmed up the back of the hood so the edge near the windshield was raised slightly to allow air to flow through under the hood to help cool. Put a washer or two between the bracket and the hood:



I have an STRI digital oil temperature gauge. When I was using regular oil like Castrol 5W20 GTX the oil temps would be almost 250 degrees F when cruising 120 km/h on the highway on a hot summer day. I am now trying 5W20 synthetic Castrol Edge and under the same driving conditions oil temp is 220 F. Around town the oil temp takes a lot longer to rise. What is causing lower temperatures is less friction between moving parts due to the synthetic oil (although both give the same protection.)

Summary: apply header wrap, shim the hood, use synthetic oil.

 

LOL That's what I'm going to do today, raise the hood 1/2 or 3/4in. But I've read in other forums that actually this will cause the SRI and IM to heat up more since all the heat now is directed up instead of going under the car. As soon as I'm done testing it I will report here. Wish me luck!

 

Yes, I've heard about a radiator's hot airflow being designed to stream under the car, but I'm thinking the slightly opened hood will only get rid of the stagnant hot air inside the engine bay itself and not muck up anything. For sure it will provide cooler air to an SRI. Good luck and we look forward to your experiment report!

 

I've seen that technique of raising the back of the bonnet ( we call it a projected bonnet) on race cars.

Ultimately though none of these should be required.
It's a modern production spec car.
They are all treating the symptom rather than the actual guilty, offending problem.